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“I’m stunned. You realize that? I’m utterly stunned.”
The light ahead turned green and Hayden drove through the intersection. A group of teenagers wearing blue and silver Warriors jerseys caught her attention, and she groaned at the sight of them. She was so not in the mood to watch a night of rowdy hockey with her father.
“So how was the big goodbye and ‘thanks for the five O’s’?” Darcy asked.
“Strange.” She made a left turn and drove down Lakeshore Drive toward the Lincoln Center, the brand-new arena recently built for the Warriors. “Before he left, he asked for my number.”
“Did you give it to him?”
“No.” She sighed. “But then he offered me his number, so I took it.”
“It was supposed to be a one-night stand!”
“Yeah…but…he looked so dismayed. I made it pretty clear that it was a one-night thing. You’d think he’d be thrilled about that. No strings, no expectations. But he was disappointed.”
“You can’t see him again. What if things get serious? You’ll be going back to the West Coast in a couple months.”
Darcy sounded surprisingly upset. Well, maybe it wasn’t that surprising, seeing as Darcy found the idea of falling in love more petrifying than the Ebola virus. The phobia had taken form a few years ago, after Darcy’s father broke up his marriage of twenty years by falling in love with another woman. Since then Darcy had convinced herself the same would happen to her. Hayden had tried to assure her friend that not all men left their wives, but her words always fell on deaf ears.
“Nothing will get serious,” Hayden said with a laugh. “First of all, I probably won’t see Brody again. And second, I won’t allow myself to develop a relationship with any man until I figure out where things stand with Doug.”
Darcy groaned. “Him? Why do you continue to keep him in the picture? Turn your break into a breakup, before he mentions the intimacy bridge and—”
“Goodbye, Darce.”
She hung up, not in the mood to hear Darcy make fun of Doug again. Fine, so he was conservative, and maybe his comparison of sex to a bridge was bizarre, but Doug was a decent man. And she wasn’t ready to write him off completely.
Uh, you slept with another man, her conscience reminded.
Her cheeks grew hot at the memory of sleeping with Brody. And somehow the words sleeping with Brody seemed unsuitable, as if they described a bland, mundane event like tea with a grandparent. What she and Brody had done last night was neither bland nor mundane. It had been crazy. Intense. Mind-numbingly wild and deliciously dirty. Hands down, the best sex of her life.
Was she a complete fool for sending him away this morning?
Probably.
Fine, more like absolutely.
But what else should she have done? She’d woken up to find Brody’s smoky-blue eyes admiring her and before she could even utter a good-morning he’d slipped his hand between her legs. Stroked, rubbed, and brought her to orgasm in less than a minute. As a result, she’d forgotten her name, her surroundings and the reason she’d brought him home in the first place.
Fortunately, the amnesia had been temporary. Her memory had swiftly returned when she’d checked her cell phone messages and saw that both her father and Doug had called.
Brody had made it clear he wanted to see her again, and sure, that would be nice…okay, it would be freaking incredible. But sex wasn’t going to solve her problems. Her issues with Doug would still be there, lurking in the wings like a jealous understudy, as would the stress of her father’s recent struggles. And if Brody wanted more than sex, if he wanted a relationship (as unlikely as that was) what would she do then? Throw a third complication into her already complicated personal life?
No, ending it before it began was the logical solution. Best to leave it as a one-night stand.
She reached the arena ten minutes later and parked in the area reserved for VIPs, right next to her father’s shiny red Mercedes convertible. She knew it was her dad’s, because of the license plate reading “TM-OWNR.” Real subtle, Dad.
Why had she even bothered coming home? When her father had asked if she could take some time off to be with him during this whole divorce mess, she’d seen it as a sign that he valued her support, wanted her around. But in the week she’d been home she’d only seen her dad once, for a quick lunch in his office. The phone had kept ringing, so they’d barely spoken, and it was unlikely they’d get any time to talk tonight. She knew how focused her dad was when he watched hockey.
With a sigh, she got out of the car and braced herself for a night of watching sweaty men skating after a black disk, and listening to her father rave about how “it doesn’t get better than this.”